Recent NewsThieves Are Going Green
One dark night in November of 2008, thieves struck the Honig Vineyards & Winery in Napa Valley, California and made off with $39,000 worth of… solar panels.
That’s right, solar panels. Across the country and the globe, solar panel theft is a growing problem, and not just for winemakers. Every morning, some school, office park or vineyard discovers it’s been robbed of its solar panels.
The thieves struck Honig again in April of this year. On September 30, they paid a third nighttime visit to nab some more panels, but this time police nabbed them, thanks to Texas-based Texana Security, a leader in innovative security technology.
How? We’ll get to that, but first it’s important to know why solar panels are suddenly “hot.”
Stealing Sunlight
Solar collectors are expensive. A new one costs about $1,000 retail, but on the internet “used” panels can go for as little as $100. The 35 pound, 3x5 panels are usually quick to remove, easy to carry and, best of all for thieves, low risk. Until recently, protecting solar panels from theft was an expensive proposition. A conventional closed-circuit video surveillance set-up (CCTV) could cost a small, family-run vineyard like Honig in the tens of thousands to install.
In Honig’s case, installation would mean cameras and alarms connected by trenched cables running through its 68 acres. Furthermore, the equipment would have little value without 24/7 monitoring at a professional security center. Small vintners like Honig are common in Napa Valley and many of them are green-minded businesses that use solar power. Thieves go where the money goes and in the first nine months of 2009, an epidemic of solar thefts have cost wineries nearly half a million dollars.
So it must have been with some confidence that at 1:00 a.m. on September 30 three men in a blue Toyota 4Runner pulled into Honig’s vineyard, presumably for an early morning panel harvest. They weren’t worried about the vineyard’s six new surveillance cameras. It was probably dummy equipment, a bluff. Even if it was real, the video feed was doubtless just going to a recorder in a darkened Honig office, not to be viewed until next morning. These pros weren’t scared of scarecrows.
This Is Not Your Father’s Security Service
A mere twenty minutes later, however, sheriff’s cars were roaring down the road into the vineyard. The three suspects fled on foot but by morning all were in custody. They weren’t just surprised; they were baffled. They would have been even more baffled if they’d known the tip-off to the Napa sheriff’s office had come from Carrollton, Texas.
Only two weeks earlier Honig had installed a security technology that’s faster, more reliable and more affordable than the standard CCTVs that have been in place for decades.
This new advance in security is called “Video Verification” and it was made available to Honig through partnering between its solar panel provider, Shamrock Renewable Energy and aggressively innovative Texana Security. This unique California-Texas alliance demonstrates that with up-to-date technology, distance doesn’t reduce protection. “It’s a revolutionary development in security for situations like ours,” said Shamrock CEO Jim Curren. “A real game-changer.”
The Texana Solution
Texana didn’t invent Video Verification, but it’s been one of the technology’s earliest adopters. Security services are by nature conservative and hesitant to introduce new products until they’ve been market-tested by, well, some other security company.
Texana takes a different approach, in what company CEO Sean O’Keefe calls “the Texana Solution.” Said O’Keefe, “If a technology is reliable and affordable, we put it on the table. We think our customers have a right to services that are proven effective, not just proven profitable.”
What Security Systems Do
So just what is “Video Verification” and why is it the security industry’s Next Big Thing? Before we go into that, let’s go into security system basics. (Don’t worry; it’s simple stuff.)
First, alarms: they’re triggered in different ways, all more or less familiar. You can touch or step on an alarm; break a circuit if you open a door or window; trigger a hidden microphone or move into an infrared beam.
Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages, but what happens next is common to all. Either (1) sirens and flashing lights go off or (2) an electronic signal is sent to a monitoring center (often both of these).
Most security services offer monitoring, which is a very good idea because 95% of alarms are false (a conservative estimate). Instead of a cat burglar, the culprit is most likely your cat, or your kid, or the wind, even you. For that reason, most police departments consider a “ringing alarm” a very low priority; it’s not unusual for response to take 2-3 hours.
What Security Systems Can’t Do
How do security companies confirm a “ringing alarm” is a real one? They do what you’d expect. Before calling the police, they call the premises. Unless someone answers the phone and provides a proper code, they promptly contact the police. Even so, since most alarms are false, an unconfirmed one doesn’t mean prompt police response.
Video Surveillance Pros and Cons
The alternative to phone verification is video surveillance. Somebody in the back of Wal-Mart or a Vegas casino is sitting in a room with a dozen screens which are rotating through a hundred cameras.
That’s better but it has its own drawbacks, such as an extra employee who does nothing but watch the screens. Wal-Mart can afford that, but over at Big Pawn chances are nobody’s monitoring those six cameras. If the clerk spots a shoplifter, the video’s good for evidence. Otherwise it’s just a bluff and professional boosters know it.
Better. Quicker. Cheaper.
So how was Honig able to afford an expensive monitored video set-up? Through two new advances in security. First, the imagery was transmitted via GPRS (cellular) technology, not cables, sharply reducing the price of installation. Second, monitoring costs were cut by the new technology of Video Verification.
The Texana Video Verification (VV) solution is more effective than conventional security systems because it virtually eliminates false alarms. When an intrusion alarm signal is received by the Texana monitoring facility, it’s accompanied by 6-10 second video clips showing what or who activated it. If the video shows the family dog walking through the living room, no action is taken and a false alarm is avoided.
On the other hand, if the video shows one or more people, the monitoring operator immediately contacts local police and reports not only the alarm, but visual verification of intruders. The operator can also provide their number, descriptions and other vital information. “Verified” information means officers are alerted to a “crime in progress.” Cops like nothing better than catching crooks in the act, so their response is immediate, not just eventual.
The Next Big Security Thing
VV is a win-win-win for you, your security service and law enforcement. Michael Honig, head of Honig’s 41-year-old winery, said, “Our solar panel system cost a million dollars. In the last twelve months, we’ve lost more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of panels. We were trying to figure out how to protect our system when E.J. Rodriguez of Texana came out and sold us on Video Verification. It cost $2,000 to install and took them maybe half a day.”
Honig continues, “So one night maybe a week later, Texana gets a live video feed of somebody’s hand blocking a camera! Texana calls the Napa Sheriff’s department, then me. I jumped out of bed and drove to the vineyard. The deputies were already there. Best of all, my panels were still there too. Was this a good investment? I spent two thousand dollars to protect a million dollar system. I’d say that’s a no-brainer.”
Napa Valley Deputy Sheriff Jon Anderson was particularly pleased, since he and Sheriff Doug Koford were scheduled to meet that very day with local vineyard owners to advise them on panel theft prevention. At the meeting they had the pleasure of announcing the arrest, which delighted the vintners and excited interest in Texana’s VV system.
Jim Curran, CEO of Shamrock—Texana’s new solar partner—is especially happy. “A year ago, panel theft wasn’t even an issue. Now in Napa and Sonoma counties alone there have been forty thefts. At Shamrock, we install with bolts and serial numbers, but thieves always figure out ways around these things. We were getting really frustrated because what we offer our customers is a long-term commitment to keep their system working. We don’t just install and walk away, so we were actively looking for a solution. We found it in Texana.”
(The alleged perpetrators were unavailable for comment, though it’s safe to say they were less enthusiastic about Texana.)
Technology Is Only as Good as Its Team
Video Verification is an exciting new advance in security, but Texana’s Sean O’Keefe is careful to point out that “Technology is only as good as the team behind it. We didn’t apprehend the thieves; the sheriff’s deputies did, and they wouldn’t have been there if Shamrock hadn’t believed in what we offered. Finally though, it came down to the folks at Honig, who were willing to try something brand new. We all worked together and that’s the way you catch the bad guys.”
